Demanding, arrogant, out of touch, superficial, narrow-minded. How many Australians see federal political leaders

Image from ABC's The Drum

With a curious dissonance developing between general support for the policies Labor is taking to the 2010 election and level of support shown for the Prime Minister in recent opinion polls, perhaps it isn't really about policy at this point but more about personality as seen filtered through a media lens.

According to the Essential Research weekly report on 10 May 2010:

There was majority approval of all recent changes to Australia’s taxation.
The most popular proposal was to increase superannuation contributions from 9% to 12% ‐ 74% approved and 17% disapproved.
63% approved increasing taxes on cigarettes and alcohol.
More than half approved cutting company tax rates (54%) and higher taxes on the profits of large mining companies (52%).
78% of Labor voters approved higher taxes on mining company profits (11% disapprove) and 56% of Liberal/National voters disapproved (35% approve).
Increasing superannuation contributions received high support from both Labor (85%) and Liberal/National voters (72%).
61% of both Labor and Liberal/National voters supported cutting company tax rates.
63% of Labor voters and 69% of Liberal/National voters approved increasing taxes on cigarettes and alcohol.

However Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott are not so clearly differentiated on personal attributes in the table below:

Kevin Rudd has only slightly better ratings than Tony Abbott across key positive attributes such as hard‐working (+5%), a capable leader (+5%) and trustworthy (+2%).
The main differences were that Kevin Rudd is perceived as more demanding (69%/52%), less narrow‐minded (43%/53%), more superficial (52%/44%)and more complacent (38%/30%).

Comparison of Leader Attributes

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